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The Complexity of Hospital Construction

by | Jan 4, 2022 | Project Highlights

 

We’re back on-site at the new Borowy Family Children’s Critical Care Tower in downtown Jacksonville for another inside look at the construction process. This time, Superintendent Tony Barroso is talking about the complexity of completing a hospital project.

Constructing and maintaining healthcare facilities is complex– and for good reason. While schedules are often ambitious and facilities are equipped with cutting-edge innovation, construction teams need to use extreme care and caution when building.

Barroso has been on this project for more than two and a half years and oversees 75 miller electric employees and seven foremen who are constantly adapting their skills to reflect layout requirements, code changes, and advancements in medical equipment.

“Coming into a hospital project, I did not realize when you walk into a patient room that everything in a patient room is integrated together,” Barroso said. “Everything in this headwall behind me basically talks or it’s wired to everything else. This headwall right here, you’ve got Philips, Natus, Hillrom, the Lutron circadian lighting– it’s all integrated and talks together.”

Just like how, Project Manager Jonathan Harvey said, the teams out on this project talk to one another.

“I’d like to give Tony credit for coordinating with all the many subcontractors we have here,” Harvey said. “We have facility automation, we’ve got Scion for fire alarm, Allsouth for lightning protection. Then we have our in-house guys that we brought on and helped coordinate this project with. We’ve got Miller Data, Miller Integrated Systems, and we’ve got Miller AV.”

There are so many moving parts that it gets complicated when the parts themselves aren’t moving. The construction industry is still getting hammered by supply chain issues and shipping delays.

“Just something as simple as an EMT connector that we typically get next day, it’s taking three to four days,” Barroso said.

It’s a sentiment Project Associate Angellyna Bui echoes.  “If we’re not ordering it soon enough, the manufacturers just don’t have anything in stock,” Bui said. “Like everything is out of stock. So, how we’ve overcome that is to try to be ahead and plan a little bit further ahead, make sure we get those items on order. Because we’re moving so quickly, things like that could easily fall between the cracks.”

The tower is rapidly nearing completion, and in our third video, MECO intern superstar Ryan Dudley is going to show you all the lighting logistics and controls.

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